> e.g. know if the Israeli pilots thought they were attacking an Egyptian ship or an American one

The sailors would know because they have access to the same information that you do, but a greater incentive to actually do the reading. The Israeli pilots knew it as a US ship, their radio traffic questioning their attack orders - after visually identifying the USS Liberty as a US ship, was recorded and the transcripts widely known about. This happened several times, so unless the Israeli command center had the memory of a goldfish - they intentionally kept sending attack aircraft until they eventually got a pilot to pull the trigger. Why would they do such a thing? Because the US wasn't onboard with the Israeli preemptive strike and they didn't want a signals intelligence boat tipping off the Egyptians. Israel doesn't appear to reciprocate the fond feelings expressed by American politicians - the mere idea of the "Samson Option" is proof enough of that.

> This happened several times, so unless the Israeli command center had the memory of a goldfish - they intentionally kept sending attack aircraft until they eventually got a pilot to pull the trigger. Why would they do such a thing?

To that point, it's worth noting here friendly fire incidents happen all the time in war, as well as attacks against neutral parties. For instance: the US has bombed its own troops probably more times than anyone can count, and it also bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and shot down an Iranian airliner. Why would they do such things? Honestly, it's plausible they they may actually have had the memory of a goldfish, at least occasionally.

While I'm not aware of any formal study on the matter, I do remember them going over the subject at length in a forward observer course: the blame for the majority of airstrike blue on blue falling on the grunt calling for fire. It matched my experience as well - to the point that I'd avoid calling in close air support for anything short of a Custard's last stand scenario. This isn't anything like that, a command center continuously calling in attack aircraft on a target repeatedly identified as non-hostile - being put on and taken off of the situation board... unprecedented. Even if my opinion of the command staff was so low as to grant them a "well, maybe you are just that dangerously incompetent" - the lying makes that even harder to believe (technically impossible claims wrt speed and offshore shelling capability).

The Israeli government had strong incentive to do this, and accounts on the ship were that this was clearly intentional. Why is this so hard for you to believe?

> The Israeli government had strong incentive to do this, and accounts on the ship were that this was clearly intentional. Why is this so hard for you to believe?

Because an imputed motive is not proof of anything, and there's no way "accounts on the ship" could provide the information you claim they do (knowledge of the attackers mental state).

I don't think anyone disputes that the Israelis attacked the ship intentionally, but you can say the same about most friendly fire incidents. The question is if the people who made the attack deliberately decided to attack what they know to be an American ship.